Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

“I have profited from your absence, Lieutenant, to enquire of your character,” I began.

A merry look, from under a lifted eyebrow. “And am I fit to touch your glove, Miss Austen?”

“I learned that you are everywhere regarded as a man of charm and intelligence; that you are an officer renowned for bravery and quick temper; that you are observed to spend a good deal of time on horseback in the Park; and that you prefer saddle of mutton to roast beef, in which you have been disappointed this evening.”

“Nay!” he cried, his head thrown back in laughter, “and shall we have the size of my boot and my preference in tailors as well?”

“It was an intelligence I could not, with delicacy, gather,” I replied, “but if you disappear with such alacrity again, I shall be certain to find it out.”

With great good humour the Lieutenant then began to converse quite freely, enquiring of my life in Bath and the circumstances of my family with a becoming interest. For my part, I quickly learned that he is the son of Lord Scargrave's sister, Julia, dead these niany years, and that his father was a dissolute rogue. Having reduced the Lady Julia to penury (for so I interpreted the Lieutenant's more generous words), the elder Mr. Hearst had the good sense to abandon his sons to her brother and depart for the Continent, where he subsequently died in the arms of his mistress. Lord Scargrave has had the rearing of the Hearst boys these twenty years; and it would not be remarkable if they looked to him as a father.

The Lieutenant added that he had tired of schooling while still at Eton, and spurned Oxford for the more brilliant ranks of the military; that he is at present a member of the Royal Horse Guards, resident in St. James, and is at Scargrave on leave through the Christmas holidays; though he failed to intimate that it was an enforced leave, due to his having recently killed a man.

Indeed, having spent some time in Lieutenant Hearst's company, I must wonder whether Miss Delahoussaye's romantic notions have not run away with what little sense she commands. For the Lieutenant seems as unlikely to kill a man as my dear brother Henry.

Fond of jokes, liberal in his smiles, incapable of giving offence to anybody, Tom Hearst is a ray of sun; but like the sun, can scorch when least expected. We had been half an hour along in the dance, and were nearing its close, when he turned the subject to Isobel, with some impertinence of manner.

“I may rejoice that my uncle has married,* he said, taking my hand as I exchanged places with my neighbour, “when my aunt's acquaintance proves so delightful.”

“Did you not rejoice, then, before I came to Scargrave?”

An anxious look, as having betrayed too much, was my reward, and an affectation of laughter. “For my own part,” the Lieutenant replied, “I take my uncle's happiness as the sole consideration. But others may feel a nearer interest.”

“I do not pretend to understand you.” I turned my back upon him in the dance and caught Isobel's eye as she made her way along the line.

“You must be aware, Miss Austen,” said Tom Hearst, “that an elderly man without children of his own may disappoint his family when he goes in pursuit of heirs.”

“With a father past seventy, I should not call eight-and-forty elderly” I replied, turning again to face him.

“Oh! To be sure! I spoke but as a matter of form. I do not doubt, however; that my cousin the Viscount”—this, with a glance at Lord Payne, who stood opposite Fanny Delahoussaye in the next couple but one—”may feel such a mixture of emotions more acutely than I. Though Lord Fitzroy Payne appears to rank the Countess as chief among his acquaintance, even he must acknowledge the blow to his fortunes. If my uncle gets an heir, Lord Payne's prospects are decidedly the worse.”

“Your solicitude for your cousin's purse may disarm reproof,” I told him, “but your uncle's happiness must be said to outweigh more material concerns.” That I wondered at his imparting so much of a personal nature to a complete stranger I need not emphasise; but it hardly dissuaded me from pursuing the conversation further.

“Oh! Uncle's happiness,” said the Lieutenant, turning his gaze upon Lord Scargrave, who even then was engaged in a bout of laughter as he moved his elegant wife through the figures. “His happiness cannot be doubted. We should all be as fortunate at eight-and-forty. But as we are blessed with only half his years, Miss Austen, let us throw off sober talk and take up other things. Have you been much in Hertfordshire?”

Recovering his senses, as it seemed, the Lieutenant conversed with great charm until the music ended, and then he bowed low over my gloved hand. After earnestly entreating me to favour him with another dance, and hearing me plead the necessities of fatigue, he took himself off in search of wine punch.

I gazed after him for an instant, turning over his words in my mind, then shook my head and resolved to think of him no more. Tom Hearst is altogether a scapegrace, a rake, and possibly a dangerous fellow, with his likeable face, his vigourous dancing, and his easy manners; a man who might do with a woman as he liked, having once won her heart.

11 December 1802, cont.

THE MOST CURIOUS OF THE INCIDENTS I WITNESSED LAST night sprang from the arrival of a man — a gentleman and a stranger, but of so malevolent an aspect, that I shiver to find him still beneath our roof as the Earl lies dying. He is the chief of what I would understand about life at Scargrave Manor; and I must look to my friend Isobel for explanation, since it was in pursuit of her that he came.

I was engaged in observing Lieutenant Hearst's progress towards the wine punch, when Isobel appeared at my side. Her face was becomingly flushed, and her brown eyes alight.

“My dear Jane! Is not this an excellent ball? Is not it an elegant assembly? And yet I have bade my husband be off, that I may steal a few moments in your company,” she declared, taking my hand. “Come into this corner and tell me all that has happened, for since your arrival I have not had a moment to spare for your cares.”

She led me to a settee placed conveniently within the alcove of a window, the better to view the progress of her ball while conversing unmolested. I confessed to some little fatigue after the rigours of Lieutenant Hearst's conversation and enthusiasm, and sank into the seat with relief,

“I had hoped to be able to wish you joy, my dear Jane,” Isobel began, “but you are determined to deny me the pleasure. Now, do not run away,” she added, as I looked conscious, “in the fear that I am going to scold you — on the contrary, I admire you. Yes,” she insisted, when I would protest, “I admire your courage. It is rare to find a woman who places her personal happiness above her fears for the future. You refused Mr. Bigg-Wither, refused his offer of a home, a family, and the comfortable means they assured, to retain your independence, despite the counsel of all who wished you well and threw their weight behind the match. What strength!”

“Did you know Mr. Bigg-Wither, you would think me less noble,” I said. “There cannot be two men so likely to meet with refusal in the entire country. What is remarkable is that I accepted him at all, if only for an evening. The thought of an eternal fireside tête-à-tête with Mr. Bigg-Wither; the endless presiding over the Bigg-Wither teapot; the possibility of little Bigg-Withers, all equally as dull as their father — such nightmares were enough to chasten me by morning.”

“But at least your nightmares were of short duration, Jane.” Isobel smoothed the elegant folds of her green silk gown, her aspect turned sombre in an instant. “There are too many ladies, I fear, who must suffer them the length of an unhappy marriage. Better to reject a suitor, than to lie forever wakeful in contemplation of one's mistake.”